Hypogonadism means diminished functional activity of the gonads caused by deficient secretion and/or effects of sex hormones. This disease can be caused by a variety of reasons and is usually categorized by where the defect is as well as by the level of gonadotropin into the following two classes:
1.hypergonadotropic hypogonadism, caused by gonadal diseases and associated with compensatory increases in follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH); and
2.hypogonadotropic hypogonadism, caused by deficient pituitary secretion of FSH and/or LH and leading to secondary gonadal dysfunction.
In clinical practices, patients with diminished gonadal function are usually treated by subcutaneous/intramuscular injection of human menopausal gonadotropins (abbreviated hereinafter as HMG). Because HMG is extracted from the urine of postmenopausal women and contains FSH and LH, hence it can improve the levels of the hormones in patients, achieving the purpose of treatment.
At present, HMG is delivered by manual injection which requires the patients to learn how to perform the injections and to always be aware of when they should perform the injections. This leads to inconvenience in the patients' daily live and learning activities. Moreover, since the conventional treatment fails to simulate the human body's natural hormone secretion behavior, long-term use of it may end in secondary failure, causing unsatisfactory efficacy of clinical treatment.